Velvet Lightning

by Kay Hooper

  “She did, Father,” Catherine said in a quiet voice.

  “She was going to have another baby after that, but it died before it could be born. And then there was another, dead even before she knew it was inside her.”

  Catherine half closed her eyes. “Father—”

  “We just stopped trying then.”

  Catherine remembered. She remembered her mother’s weakness after the miscarriage. Remembered her mother's tears. Remembered her parents occupying separate bedrooms after that.

  “I killed her,” Lucas said starkly.

  “She got sick, Father. You couldn’t have stopped it.”

  He laughed, a curious sound that held a thread of horror. “No, no, you don’t understand. I killed her. She knew. She knew I killed her. She haunts me, Catherine.”

  “Father, please. You have to rest. Close your eyes and try to sleep.”

  “She haunts me,” he whispered, but obediently closed his eyes.

  Catherine watched him silently. It was a good hour before she was certain he was asleep. When she was sure, she silently left his bedside and went away to snatch sleep for herself, too tired even to think.

  Dr. Scott came to visit the following day, and Catherine left him upstairs alone with her father. He had told her that he’d earlier spread the word in town that Lucas was mildly infectious, discouraging visitors; she was grateful for that. She stood downstairs now, looking around, thinking vaguely of furniture that needed dusting, or other things needing to be done.

  When someone knocked at the front door, she went to answer the summons without thought. But she went first hot and then cold when she saw who was standing on the doorstep.

  Tyrone.

  His eyes narrowed quickly, but his voice was calm and polite when he spoke. “Mr. Abernathy had some groceries ready to send you, so I offered to deliver them.” He held a large box, and lifted it slightly to emphasize this sensible reason for his forbidden visit. “Just tell me where to put them.”

  Catherine hesitated, then stepped back to allow him inside. “Kind of you to trouble yourself,” she said in a voice she tried hard to keep steady and without emotion. “If you’d take them into the kitchen, please?”

  “Certainly.” He had been there before, and knew the way.

  She followed, stopping to wait for him outside her father’s study door. Her throat felt tight, her body stiff and sore. She had left the front door partly open.

  He returned to stand before her. And he reached out suddenly to touch her cheek, his voice dropping to a low, husky note.

  “You look so tired, Catherine.”

  6

  Catherine felt herself quiver, and tried to keep the reaction from showing on her face. “Father’s better. He should be up and about by tomorrow.” She could see the stairs from here, and kept a wary eye out for Dr. Scott’s return.

  “You’ve been waiting on him hand and foot, haven't you?” Tyrone’s tone was impatient.

  She didn’t answer. Even in weariness her body had begun pulsing slowly, awakening to his presence. It was hard to breathe, hard to think. But she tried. “Thank you for bringing the groceries. It was kind of you.”

  Tyrone knew a dismissal when he heard one; he decided to ignore it. He grasped one of her hands firmly and pulled her through the doorway into her father’s study. “Stop watching the damned stairs,” he said roughly. “And talk to me, Catherine!”

  With an effort that felt unbearably great, she managed a faintly mocking smile. “Missing your bedmate, Tyrone?”

  His free hand encircled her neck abruptly and he kissed her with the starkly branding possession that was so new in him, uncaring that they could be observed at any moment. “What do you think?” he asked.

  She caught at stolen breath. “I think you are.” “Damned right.” A grin slashed across his dark face, and he glanced around the study. “However...”

  “However,” she agreed through dry lips. No love- making here. Never here.

  His glance had settled on a large oil painting behind her father’s desk, and his eyes narrowed. “Your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the living image of her.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  Tyrone looked back at her face, his gaze intense. “God, I've missed you,” he said softly.

  “You said that,” she managed to say.

  “Not just a bedmate. You. I’ve missed you.”

  Catherine was very conscious of his hand still holding her own firmly, of the other hand at the nape of her neck, fingers moving caressingly. “If Father’s better, perhaps tomorrow.”

  “I want to be with you.” He seemed to be trying to explain something to her. Or to himself. “I want to look at you, talk to you. Touch you. I want to be with you, Catherine.”

  I want to be with you! She wanted to repeat his incredible words, savor them aloud, return them and their sentiment to him. But she didn’t, or course. “Yes. But, you have to go now. Dr. Scott is upstairs— my father. You have to go.”

  Gray eyes probed hers in an intent search. Very quietly he said, “I wish you’d tell me what you’re afraid of. Tell me what’s hurting you.”

  She stiffened, then backed up a step so that he was forced to release her. “I told you.”

  “That you’re afraid of being a whore in the eyes of the town?” he said bluntly. “That isn’t it. You’re like me, Catherine; you don't give a tinker’s damn what other people think of you. So it has to be something else. What is it?”

  “Tyrone—”

  “Whatever it is, let me help.”

  You can't help me. No one can. Steadily she said, “I’ll come tomorrow if I can. If Father’s better.”

  Tyrone sighed heavily. “All right, dammit.” His mouth was tight, hard, his eyes glittering. “But I’ll find out. I will, Catherine. You can’t keep it from me forever.”

  That was part of what she was afraid of. She turned away and preceded him out into the hall, then to the front door. Without a word she opened the door wider and waited for him to go, to leave her.

  He paused a moment in the doorway, saying in a different voice, “You should let someone take care of you.” Without waiting for a response, he left the house.

  Catherine closed the door and leaned back against it. She watched her hands shake, felt the tremors inside. She knew she should end it. Knew she wouldn’t. Knew she would go to him tomorrow if it was at all possible.

  Like a moth to the flame. Bent on destruction.

  Tyrone felt tense, angry. He thought of Catherine’s pale, strained face, and anger tangled with a surge of concern, of tenderness. He had wanted to hold her, simply hold her, had wanted to wipe the weariness and tension from her face.

  He felt so damned helpless. It wasn’t a feeling he was familiar with. And the mystery that was Catherine grew more bewildering by the hour.

  She wanted him, and yet her own desire seemed to cause her pain. She zealously guarded their secret, even though he was certain the opinion’s of the townfolk meant next to nothing to her. She gave of her passion, her body, without reservation, yet refused to share any more than that with him. And she was afraid.

  He drove the bay at a brisk trot all the way back to his house, frowning in thought. I was as if ... He remembered a jigsaw puzzle he had brought for the sick man in his house, remembered the man’s bafflement when a piece proved to be missing, leaving the picture incomplete.

  That was Catherine. He had all the pieces but one, and that one was needed to show him what she was. A single piece of her that she protected fiercely, and he hadn’t a clue as to what it might be.

  He was no closer to the answer when the bay turned in his drive and trotted briskly to the house. He put the horse away himself, checking the other horses before he closed up the barn. There had been no further attempts against his stock, and he was no closer to an answer there either.

  He went inside. Much later, reading a story to the man, Tyrone was conscious of a leade
n sadness and discouragement within himself. It happened more and more, he knew, because this childlike man with the gaunt face and innocent eyes was slipping away. In a very real sense he had gone already, but Tyrone had kept a memory alive, and that had been enough. For a while.

  But now, with the man fading, there seemed nothing to hold on to. It was such a waste, such a terrible, tragic waste. And Tyrone hated waste.

  He wished suddenly that he could tell Catherine about the man, share the memory with someone else he cared about—

  He realized the truth only then. Leaving the man to be helped into bed by Tully, Tyrone went downstairs and sat alone in his study, gazing at nothing.

  Fool, he thought, fool not to have seen it sooner. He was in love with Catherine.

  She came quickly into the cottage the next afternoon, a little breathlessly, not ten minutes after he’d arrived himself.

  “Mr. Odell came to see Father and they're playing cards,” she said immediately. “I can’t stay away for long.”

  Tyrone stopped her breathless rush by pulling her into his arms, kissing her. “Let me hold you,” he said huskily, and did, keeping her slender body pressed tightly to his own. She was still for a moment, pliant, but then she pushed back away from him.

  “There’s no time,” she said.

  He was struck by her urgency, by the almost wild look in her darkening eyes. Concerned because of her exhaustion and strain, he had meant this interlude between them to be quiet and peaceful. He had wanted, somehow, to comfort her. But she refused that, and he could feel a storm loose in the tiny room.

  “Catherine—”

  “There's no time.” Swiftly she reached to free her hair, scattering pins carelessly over the floor. Her eyes fixed on his face, she began unbuttoning her dress. “This is what we are, Tyrone. Just this.”

  “No. More.” He could feel the rising heat, feel his body and senses responding to her strange, desperate urgency. He watched the dress fall away from her.

  “There can't be more.” Her voice was low, shaking. “You knew that from the beginning. There can’t be more, not between us.” She kicked her shoes off and stepped toward him wearing the thin linen shift and stockings. Her hands reached for his tie, his coat, dropping them heedlessly to the floor. Unbuttoning his shirt, tugging it from his trousers.

  “Catherine . . .” His voice had thickened, gone hoarse.

  “I want you. Now, right now. I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to think.”

  She took his hand and led him into the tiny bedroom, and they made love on top of the colorful quilt, as they had before. But it had never been so wild between them, so hungry. Catherine was almost ravenous, and yet her urgency held a thread of despair that moved Tyrone unbearably. She seemed determined to take all she could of him, fixedly intent, as if she knew there would never be another opportunity to lie in his arms.

  There were no half smiles from her this time, no contentment or ease. She didn’t ask him not to leave her. And Tyrone, burned by her fire, seduced by her need, tried to give her the assurances she was so desperate for. He tried—and was unhappily conscious of failure. He could give her passion because she would accept it from him, match it, return it. But she refused his tenderness, rejected comfort.

  And if she wouldn’t accept those simple, undemanding emotions, he realized in pain, then how would she ever accept his love?

  It almost broke his heart.

  * * *

  When it was over, when the tiny room was quiet and still again, Catherine slid from the bed. She retrieved her shift and stockings from the floor, put them on in silence. She got her hairbrush and pins, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him, and restored her hair to order.

  Tyrone, lying on his side watching her, thought that she had never before left the cottage first. He wondered what it meant, and was afraid he knew. Quietly he said, “What in God’s name are you afraid of, Catherine?”

  Her back still to him, she continued to braid her hair. After a moment she said, “I have to get back home. I told you.”

  When she would have risen, he reached over and grasped her wrist gently. “Look at me,” he ordered.

  She turned her head slowly, looked at him with a still face and eyes that were guarded.

  “Let me help you,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to help.” Her voice was calm. “Nothing wrong, nothing different. Nothing has changed, Tyrone.”

  “You don’t lie very well, Catherine.”

  She pulled her wrist free and got to her feet, stood looking down at him for a moment. “I’ll be busy for a few days,” she said. “I won’t be able to come here. Perhaps on Friday.”

  Friday was three days away. Tyrone looked at her, feeling frustrated, angry, worried. “All right,” he said finally. “Friday, then.’’

  She nodded, a flash of relief in her eyes, then turned away and went into the other room. He heard the rustle of her clothing as she finished dressing. The next moment he heard the door open and quietly close.

  He didn't leave for a long time.

  Catherine slipped back into her father's house in silence and, listening, was relieved to hear Lucas’s laugh from the study. Good. Odell was still here, then.

  She busied herself in the house, cleaning and dusting, making a start on the work that had piled up while her father had been ill. She had sent word to the woman who came in daily not to return until her father was better, and made a mental note to pass along the news that he was recovering now.

  She didn’t think about Tyrone. She blanked her mind and worked, concentrating on what she was doing. It was the hardest thing she had ever had to do, but she did it. The only alternative was pain and worry.

  The following day her father was better. It was always like that with him; once back on his feet, it was as if he had never been ill. She was relieved, knowing that she could relax a bit now and recover her energy. She badly needed to do that.

  “I believe I’ll go for a ride, Catherine,’’ he said cheerfully.

  “Don’t overtire yourself, Father.”

  “No, no, I won’t. The hack needs exercise; so do I. Just down to the harbor and back, perhaps. I’ll be all right. Stop fussing, Catherine.”

  She didn’t bother to point out that for the past days he had wanted her to fuss over him. He’d be indignant if she reminded him, would bluster and deny and work himself up to anger. She had learned to avoid that.

  Instead, she said, “I’ll go into town then. Mr. Abernathy sent groceries, but there are a few things I should get.”

  “Fine. Get another bottle of wine, will you?”

  “Father—”

  “Another bottle, Catherine.” Lucas was very annoyed.

  “Very well.” She realized, suddenly, that during his illness she hadn't bothered to drug his nightly glass of wine. But it couldn’t matter, she assured herself. It couldn’t possibly matter. He was fine now.

  He hitched up the buggy for her in a rare burst of helpfulness, then saddled his elderly gray hack and set off toward the harbor at a comfortable pace. Catherine drove herself into town, unable to help herself wishing that she would see Tyrone, even while knowing that such an encounter would be tense and cold and painfully unsatisfying as always.

  Not long now, she thought bitterly, until that’s all I'll have.

  She pushed the thought away. Halting the buggy before the mercantile, she was dismayed to find the town busy and filled with people. It was relatively unusual, particularly on a weekday, but half the women and a number of the men of Port Elizabeth seemed to have found some reason for being in town.

  There were few young children on the island, since the wealthy families chose to send their youngsters away to boarding school in Europe; only the merchants kept their children with them, and there was a one-room schoolhouse at the northern end of town, where a brisk, middle-aged spinster, enticed to the island from Philadelphia, taught. School was over for the day, however, so the street rang with childr
en’s shouts and laughter.

  Catherine, wearing composure like an iron mask, hitched her horse to the rail and stepped up onto the sidewalk. There was a clatter of small feet rushing by, almost running into her, and one young boy, sniggering, jerked at her skirt as he passed.

  The boy's mother was no more than ten feet away, and Catherine watched her turn away indifferently. Unsurprised, Catherine wondered wryly how she could hope for respect from the children, when their elders were so studiously lacking it.

  It hurt though.

  She stiffened her spine and went into the store. There were several women and a few men talking and laughing in the big, cluttered store. Catherine quailed, but kept her head high.

  Tyrone, standing in a dim corner by the pickle barrel, smoking a cigar and talking to Dr. Scott, saw her come in. He had been asking Scott about the loss of his old hack, still trying as casually as possible to discover if the other animals that had died under mysterious circumstances could have been killed deliberately, if not quite so brutally, as his own horse. But when Catherine entered the store, Tyrone found his mind wandering away from the doctor and dead animals, and fixing on her.

  And, instantly, he saw her isolation, her aloneness, more clearly than he had ever seen it before. The people in the store didn’t, being “civilized,” offer her cold stares or insulting remarks; they simply behaved as if she weren’t there. Gazes passed over her and were averted; shoulders were casually turned away; voices were raised slightly higher in volume. And through it all, Catherine, expressionless, silently gathered the items she had come for.

  “Poor girl.’’

  Tyrone looked sharply at Dr. Scott, who was gazing meditatively at Catherine. “What do you mean?” he asked, wondering if the doctor saw what he himself saw.

  Dr. Scott pursed his lips slightly, still looking at Catherine. “She has a great deal to bear.”

  “These people hate her,” Tyrone said slowly. “I find that hard to understand. She’s done nothing to them.” He watched the doctor intently, looking for some clue to the answers he sought.